Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Applications to SpiderForest are accepted twice a year, often in July and January. Submissions are collected for the first 3 weeks of each month, and are considered by all active members of the network for inclusion. Final decisions are made by confidential SF member vote during the final week of each month. All applicants will be notified via email on the final week of each month. Not all applications are accepted.

If you have a comic you would like us to consider, we are looking for the following:

The ability to tell a good story or joke, with a fitting style of art.

If the above statement is too ambiguous for you, we recommend checking out other comics already hosted here.

Other requirements:

You must CURRENTLY be actively updating your comic at least once a week, or are scheduled to return from hiatus independent of being accepted. Exceptions are made on a case-by-case basis.

You must have at least 15 pages of your comic complete and available to read online. NO EXCEPTIONS!

You must show the desire to continue your comic, and the diligence to update it to schedule.

For the July 2014 application season, you must have an independently self-hosted site for your comic.

Creator(s) Name(s): Everyone who works on your webcomic(writers/artists).

Contact: Your e-mail address.

Website URL: For the July 2014 application round, all applicants must have an independently self-hosted website in place for their comic (i.e. not members of a comics host, other collective, publishing on DA or similar)*.

5-page Sample: Links to 5-pages of your webcomic. This does not need to be sequential but should be representative of your BEST work.

Synopsis: In 250 words or less, tell us about your comic. Do not send an essay or a manuscript.

Update schedule: Tell us how often your comic updates.

Referral: How did you learn about SF applications being open? Has a member asked you to apply?

Hosting: We are not offering hosting for the July 2014 application round.

Why this comic would make a good addition to SF: Please tell us what you’ll bring to SF.

POOR QUALITY APPLICATIONS WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. We expect correct grammar and spell-checked applications. Be as brief as possible while still doing your work justice. Longer applications are rarely better.

* In future application rounds, we may again accept comics for hosting. In that case, we would still expect you to have a basic site in place. DA art galleries not desired. Webcomics are meant to be read in order, and we do not like to search through your gallery to find the next page. You will also need to be able to handle a SITE, not a gallery, though of course, we will help you! Try DrunkDuck, ComicGenesis or SmackJeeves to see if a website is something that you want.

Intellectual Property Rights:

SpiderForest claims ABSOLUTELY NO RIGHTS on your work. It belongs to you, period. SF is a collective, not a business. SF is here to provide a good, solid home for your comic and others like it, not to make money. Members support each other to help all the comics here grow and succeed. If you doubt this, or think it is too good to be true, we suggest contacting members hosted here and asking them about their experiences.

Member Responsibilities:

Your main responsibility once accepted will be to simply update your comic with quality material in a consistent manner. As your audience grows, you will expose all of them to all the other comics hosted here, and help everyone gain new readers. Of course, we all realize life happens, hiatuses occur, and you get busy. That’s ok! We just expect you to take care of your comic when you can!

Your secondary responsibilities include being an active participant in the collective by voting on new member additions, submitting any banners or advertising material necessary for any changes to the SF front page or header, and checking the forum occasionally for updates.

You are required to display above the fold the rotating header for other comics on the network. This header is customizeable, holding a banner that is 600x29px.

SF greatly appreciates any donations to help with network upkeep, but it is NOT REQUIRED.

What We Don’t Offer You

We don’t pay you for your work. SF is not a publisher. This means it is an OPPORTUNITY for you to gain a larger audience through cross-advertising at no cost to you.

Mirror Sites?

If accepted as a member, you are definitely allowed to maintain a mirror site, however we ask that your SF site be your main site and that it be at LEAST an update ahead of any mirror sites you may have.

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